On rough estimation, Rease's words don't even seem that far fetched; the path left by the lakotay did, in fact, seem to head in the direction of the exit, or at least the tunnels near the exit. Still, the plan had been to lead the lakotay in the direction we wanted. Instead, it was taking on a life of it's own; an opportunity that we'd need to jump on immediately, or be left behind in the dust. "Buh dum, tsk," I think, as the cloud of sand and rock dust settles around me and Caz. We had come prepared with the resources we'd need to direct it, and even follow it into battle, but now that we're actually being presented with the option, there's a general sense of unease, of unpreparedness amongst the squad.
"Or maybe I'm just projecting," I think, my hands fiddling with the various equipment strapped to my body. Rease, Ko-lee, and Ella all make their way down from the ledge as me and Caz stare into the tunnel left behind by the lakotay's jaunt. The opening yawns, vaguely reminiscent of the void inside the worm's gullet. There's no doubt on whether or not we're following it into the darkness... but the question remains on whether we'll be chewed up by Grineer armaments as we forge ahead, or if there's a light at the end of the tunnel. "Spooky," says Rease from my right, succinctly putting into words all my feelings on the matter. "I'll be honest, I wasn't really expecting the whole 'lakotay' thing to work out," Caz admits from my left. "I was just hoping we'd be able to get out from under the suppression field as we explored the tunnels, and radio out. I'm honestly really surprised this went according to plan."
"It didn't," Ko-lee points out. "The plan was for us to force it towards the Grineer. But, for some reason, we didn't need to." The unsaid is clear as day. "If it's moving in that direction, but we're not making it do that, then what is?" Caz shrugs, a ghost of the irreverence that had pervaded his every action since first meeting him. To be fair, it had never really gone away, merely lessened over time, but it's uncomfortable seeing him be so flippant about leading us into an unknown danger. "Squad leader," I prompt, giving Caz a jolt. "What are our orders?" There's no humor in my expression or my tone, and I watch his level of detachment recede, as his eyes jump between me and the others.
He blinks a few time, then looks back at the tunnel, as though seeing it for the first time. "Right," he says, before once more looking at the four of us. "Right. Well, our plan was to point the lakotay towards the Grineer, and either use it as an escape option, or as cavalry in a fight. From what I can tell, it seems like it's already doing that. However, I can't be entirely sure which of the two options it'll end up being. That means we need to go in expecting a fight." My hands drift towards my Burston, and Caz notices the motion, a small smile forming on his lips.
"So, it's a good thing we're equipped for one. It might not be exactly on our terms, but no plan survives contact with the giant spider worm." It doesn't feel like he's being flippant, more like acknowledging the absurdity. It helps lessen the tension a bit, and he locks eyes with each one of us before continuing. "If we don't capitalize now, we likely won't have another chance. What's more, the tunnel means that we're likely no longer cut off from the Grineer. So the options are to do this on their terms, or ours." He pulls the Braton off his back, the gun held comfortably in his hands, ready to end life in an instant; a preference stated. He smirks. "Let's go introduce them to our new friend."
The five of us make our way into the tunnel left by the lakotay and begin hiking after it, trying to close the gap to more effectively capitalize on our friend's arrival. But even with it's slower pace, the creature is some amount ahead of us, and ours is slowed by the need to clear the occasional gaps in the stone and full on intersections that the lakotay had crossed through. Each one is like a stop sign as we scan for enemy combatants, human or otherwise. Our pace is also slowed by the darkness of the tunnel, since we're avoiding the use of fosfor flares. Not as much as it would've been in one of the lava tubes, but it adds up. The odds that the Grineer would somehow miss the giant stone chewing worm but manage to notice a flicker of light after the fact are slim, but it's still not a risk worth taking, and by the lack of suggestions otherwise, it seems like everyone agrees.
"Still, I'm glad the tunnel is nice and even. Easy on the feet," I think, forming a mental map from my various senses. Even in the darkness, the point cloud representation, the touch of my hand, and the steadiness of my feet creates an image in my mind of the smoothness of the tunnel. I take a deep breath, the acrid sting of the hot mess left in the center of the tunnel causing me to scrunch my nose. The smell is off putting, but more frustratingly, the material is hot, filling the air itself with heat. It's not enough to be dangerous, but it's enough to be unsettling; to cause sweat to drip down our noses, to clash with the heat being generated by our own, adrenaline fueled bodies.
I carefully place my feet, making sure to avoid the refuse, same as everyone else. "I feel like in a different context, this would be very funny," I think. Instead, the tension in the air is thick, and the five of us continue down the tunnel in resolute, stoic silence. My eyes glance up to the map in the top left of my vision, and I feel my heartbeat speed up slightly. What was five or six miles of curvy tunnels has turned into barely one, and I can see that we're approaching previously mapped terrain. A message popping into my headset causes me to startle; the artificial brightness aggressive against the encompassing darkness we'd been moving through.
CV: The lakotay is headed towards something, but the upcoming intersection is one we've already passed through. We can keep following it, but it might not lead us anywhere effective. I'm thinking we split off here, try to head towards the entrance instead. Hopefully the lakotay will keep the Grineer distracted for the few hours it takes for us to leave.
It's clear from the message what it is he's doing. He's giving us the information he has, and the reasoning behind why he's making one choice over the other. Commanding, but leaving room for us to interject, to disagree. Just in case. I'm suddenly hyper aware of how close I was to being in his position; of having to make a decision with limited information, of having the lives of my friends in my hands, of not having the experience of leading but being forced into the role regardless. "Do we stay or do we go," sings a part of my mind, the chorus of the Clash song at odds with the apprehension in the air. Another message comes in.
KL: I agree. The tunnel is too straight, and I'm not sure that rumbling is coming from the lakotay.
It takes me a minute to understand what she's saying, and when I do, my eyes open wide. The ever present vibration beneath our feet had been building and falling, building and falling, but I had just assumed that that was a quirk of how the lakotay processed the tunnel; each gap of air from an intersection lending to periods of decreased shaking. It's only as I focus my attention on it that I'm able to parse out two different sources; one organic, of a creature moving through stone, chewing and grinding and groaning, and one mechanical, a mathematically perfect sine wave cutting in and out on a dime, with seemingly no pattern to it. I stand there for a few moments, taking it in, before another message pops up.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
CV: The idea was to take the fight to the Grineer. But this might be something else. Infrastructure, or maybe Corpus interference. If I was confident it was just soldiers, then I'd say we keep following the lakotay. But I'm making a call here; we leave the way we came in.
I can hear the tiniest sigh of relief in the otherwise roaring silence of the tunnel. There's no more discussion, and I watch the little blue dots on my HUD in front of mine start to move forward once again, this time turning away from the newly formed tunnel and back into the familiar territory of the lava tubes. We slow as we trade old for new, the flooring janky and unsteady, but there's an electric feeling in the air. One of barely concealed excitement, of the sense of a finish line just around the corner. A quick zoom out on my map shows that it's maybe a two hour trek before we're once again under open sky.
I feel my heart skip a beat, but a pragmatic part of my mind dampens the flame. "Closer to three or four hours at this pace," it says. "A lot can happen in four hours." I do my best to relax my jaw from it's clenched position, and try to shut out the bleak voice from invading my psyche. I'm so focused on my mental state that at the gasp from Ella my heart jumps into my throat. My gun snaps up and my eyes desperately scan for targets in the gloom. There's a second before my eyes are able spot the form of the Grineer low to the ground, fractionally lit by the subtly emissive glow of his eyes. It takes all my willpower not to immediately put a bullet in his face, and the only reason I don't is because I'm fourth in line; if the other three hadn't already pull their triggers, then I don't need to as well.
A few more seconds go by before I realize why, and when I do, I feel the MRE in my stomach turn. "What the fuck?" asks Ko-lee, her voice soft, as she kicks the boot of the dead Grineer. "Shit. You think the worm did this?" asks Rease, his eyes trained on the crumpled form of the soldier. "It didn't go this way. Also, the lakotay would've eaten him," Ella responds, somewhat robotically. The Grineer's face is smashed in; bones and teeth and cartilage and flesh all in the wrong place. Flaps of skin are squished out of cracks in the armor, as though trying desperately to escape some sort of overwhelming force, and finding any and every exit to do so. It's legs... his legs, the body's legs, the legs of the man... and his arms... and his chest...
The tunnel feels oppressive, claustrophobic, even more than usual. That ancient, reptilian part of my brain focused solely on survival is screaming at me to get out of there, to flee from some unknown danger. As though that isn't something I'm actively working on. "There's more," says Caz, a few yards down. It's a trip through the world's most gruesome museum; an example of the myriad ways someone can be killed. There is, of course, the standard brutalization that all of them seemed to have experienced, but they all have something special that makes them stand out.
One has wounds similar to the first one, but on his chest instead of his face. His bulky armor is shattered into so many pieces, scattered around like macabre confetti. Another is missing limbs; shear lines cut straight through armor and bone and flesh as though the obstructions merely suggestions than any real defense. One even gets Rease to snap out one of his more creative smuggler curses, one I've only had the chance to hear once or twice - usually while drinking - in more lively, upbeat, environments. "Did he eat a fucking grenade?" Rease asks, trying to piece together what had happened to the man to cause him to end up in multiple parts about the place.
I glance around, and do in fact spot more than one or two scorch marks. It's clear that whatever event had fallen upon these soldiers, explosions played a significant role. "It's still warm," says Ella, leaning away from a pool of blood. A thermal scan with my headset shows that the the temperature is 15 degrees above the cool temperature of the tunnel. "This is weird," says Caz, "but it doesn't change anything. Our goal is to extract, and we already knew we were down here with the enemy. We're not gonna get any answers from staring at corpses, not without spending more time here than I'd like."
I don't exactly agree; it feels like not taking the opportunity to get information just means we're entering a situation blind. But the corpses are unsettling, and the light at the end of the tunnel beckons, and so I hold my tongue. He takes a quick breath, and hefts his gun in front of him, before gesturing for us to follow behind. "Keep your trigger finger limber, and let's move," he tells the four of us, before taking point once again.
It only takes 30 minutes before we stumble upon another scene of devastation; this time, in a wider part of the tunnel. A single minute of examination of the corpses and scorch marks reveals an unsettling fact. "They're fresh," says Ko-lee, her expression unsettled, but focused. "But how? How haven't we heard anything?" asks Ella, a clear note of fear in her voice. Even now, when speaking, we're quiet, and beyond the occasional vibrations, there's been no sound during the trek. The black marks on the wall and the shell casings on the floor insinuate that whatever happened to this squad was loud and dramatic; something we should've been hearing 10 miles down the tunnel.
But the warm pools of blood and corpses barely into rigor mortis insinuate that the event could've happened right before we rounded the corner. The two facts are incongruous, and in that pin drop silence, every single once of us hears the shift. We spin around, our guns raised and pointed at one of the previously-assumed-corpses. "HOLD FIRE," orders Caz, his voice snapping out across the four of us, and bouncing down the hall. I cringe at the volume, but otherwise don't react. He closes the distance, only a few steps covered near instantly with Rush, and kicks away the Hind that the solider had been feebly reaching for. The man is wheezing, his movements limp and puppet like. His hand grasps for his mask once, but fails to connect to it, the weight of gravity and armor plating to much to overcome. Caz reaches out, but halts at the last inch.
It's only for second, and then he closes the gap; touching the mask, turning it and removing it, allowing us to see the man face to face. He looks rough; blood drips from his nose, and his eyes are a jaundice yellow, with an aggressive red mark stretched across his face. "Yeah, how much of that is normal though," I idly wonder, as the Grineer wheezes on the floor. "What attacked you?" asks Caz, in awkward Grinesh. The solider hisses, and tries to spit at Caz, but instead burbles up a bloody bubble, the weakest of attempts dribbling down his chin and into his suit. "Ramn... Tenno... skum," the soldier wheezes. I don't need my translator to fill in the blanks for me, the expletives clear across language barriers.
"What. Attacked. You?" asks Rease again, his expression severe, his voice sharp. "T-TENNO," says the Grineer, his voice carrying hatred even in his dying moments. I'm not the only one that takes a few seconds to realize what he's saying. "It's one of us," I think, looking over the mutilated and eviscerated corpses. "The good guys." Caz sighs, his expression aggressively neutral, as he stands up out of his squat.
He says nothing as he reaches for the Magnus at his hip, leveling it at the Grineer's head. "SON OF A GUT-" is all he manages to croak out, before the loud CRACK CRACK of two rounds pierce straight through his unarmored skull. He turns to look at the rest of us, and I can't help but glance around as well to get a read on everyone's opinion of the execution. Unbothered, shaken, grim, resigned. "It's cold, but it would've been crueler to leave him to slowly die out," says some pragmatic part of me. "Plus, leaving a living enemy combatant at our backs? It was the right thing to do."
"Even if I agree it's the right thing to do, it doesn't mean I can't feel bad about it," I argue with myself. The internal back and forth is cut off by movement out of the corner of my eye, and within a fraction of a second, five guns are leveled at a form in the hallway. Trigger discipline is - thankfully - immaculate, and no one fires on what clearly isn't a Grineer. They're lithe, imposing, and feminine, but it takes a few seconds for me to be able make out any details in the dark. The excessive shoulder pad, asymmetric. The wide helmet, touches of gold filigree, mixed with blues and grays and whites; a simplistic form, a human form that later designs would end up straying from.
A legend.
A spirit of death.
A warframe.
Banshee.
Discord!
